barely fatal

Now, my Tempest of Set is level 16, and I wanted to push him to 20 tonight. But the gods of teh intarwebs are sulky today – emergency patch and five hours downtime. My Dark Templar is already level 20 but so far she has never left Tortage – I wanted to try something different, as the last few levels didn’t make her look so great. The Tempest is a bit boring to be honest. You spam your one spell again and again, then you heal a little, then you spam a bit more. Zap! Heal. Zap! Zap! Heal. DOT Zap! Zap! I’ll try a Necromancer next.

I joined a guild, the Defenders of Hyboria. They seem to be a nice bunch. They randomly invite people into the guild without any questions, but after all, that’s how I got in as well. They have a city, I’m curious what it’s like.

The game has a serious memory leak and quite a few bugs. I can play an hour or two, then I start falling through bridges. Nice, when you find that out trying to cross the lava stream. Then all texts vanish, the background is rendered in black. Usually when I change the zone then the game crashes. Well. Maybe it’s good that they patch that thing after all.

And this is supposed to be summer…

Bioware, they are consistently ingenious. Last year they caught me by surprise with the superb Jade Empire, this year they blow me away with Mass Effect (before that they had other hits like KotoR or Baldur’s Gate). I finally beat it, took me about 33 hours in total. While I’ve played longer RPGs, ME keeps the pace high and is more action-oriented anyway. Yes, the side quests are a little dull at times, the (side-)planets similar and empty, but still then the “get the better gun” feeling sets in. And you don’t have to go there.

A lot of people complain about the complicated inventory system. I must say, it never bothered me. I equipped my team during the missions only, and there it worked wonderfully. The character’s faces look fantastic, you can read the moods perfectly, and it always matches the voice acting, too. I encountered a strange bug where I couldn’t talk to two of the crewmembers using a custom key, but I found a solution for that (use the default key). I can think of a few extra controls that would have made it better, like a bulk-delete option for items. I can live with that, considering that the game is about storytelling. And man, the storytelling, the cinematics, it’s like playing a great sci-fi movie, really playing for once…!

I want to play this game again with another class, make other choices, maybe play a nice guy. But at the moment I still identify with Killian Shepard too much and any “nice guy” thoughts seem … wrong. But I’ll definitely go back, just as I did in Jade Empire. Bioware, congrats. To your QA guys, too – even though they overlooked the button thing. I know that feeling Build on this, and part 2 will be just perfect (I guess you still agree there Static? ).

My name is Commander Killian Shepard. You might remember me from when I shot at you or kicked you in the face. I wasn’t always that hard. At first, everybody played real nice, so did I. They sent me on missions, told me stories of their woes and begged me for help. They are all liars, back-stabbing bastards. The universe is full of mad scientists cutting up people, playing with weapons of mass destruction. Full of mercs, waiting to shoot you in the back. Full of greedy corporations with dirty little secrets. Full of power-hungry “politicians” who don’t give a crap about their people, only trying to protect their own asses.

I stopped being nice. Now I shoot first, ask questions later. Blast them away with my shotgun before they can harm me or my crew. Use my biotoc powers to lift them up and crush them under my heels. Bodies to my left and to my right, humans, aliens, synthetics, it makes no difference anymore.

My loyal crew of five. They never question my orders, because they know we do the right thing. Somewhat tells me I’m yet supposed to find another crew member. But then again, maybe I already met her. And shot her. Or fed her to her own monster, virus, or plant. Nobody lies to me anymore. I get the information. I finish the mission. Like it or not.

They call me a renegade. I’m a realist.